Slow Dancing in a Burning Room
by EstellaB
Summary: She was exiled from her own country; is it any wonder, Susan thinks bitterly, that she doesn't want to remember? Title stolen from a song that I don't own. Rated for death and angst.


**Everyone should write a Susan story. This is mine. Not consistent with In-Laws; this is a standalone, unless I love it and want to write some more. Please be honest with me-my first real fic in over a year and I need to find my flow again! (Also, I'm not in the habit of writing Angst, and this is ANNNNNGGGGSSST, so I definitely need some help with that aspect of it :S).**

Susan is the Gentle Queen, and sometimes she feels it running through every inch of her. She may have angles where curves were once, and her hair is cropped and dull, and she got three answers wrong on her most recent French test; she doesn't care, because she reminds herself every evening what Aslan has seen in her. Looking at her chapped winter hands, and running a tongue over lips in the same condition, Susan scratches a patch of itchy skin, and remembers that she is a Daughter of Eve and that her home is in Cair Paravel. She even tells Lucy this from time to time, though her sister is normally the bouncing optimist. She tells her because Lucy's eyes have that tendency to fill when she sees the fresh snowfall, and there is no Father Christmas to accompany it.

That works well for a while, and, as long as she wakes and sees Aslan's face in her mind's eye, as she had done in Narnia, Susan is still the graceful, generous woman that she was always intended to be. Her nerves and her resolve fray and become worn with exams and parties and boys, everywhere; the night comes when she does not whisper, _peace, Daughter of Eve_, so regularly, and slowly, sadly, the memories begin to lose their sweetness.

*-*

She cannot express how much it hurts to know that she will never come back to Narnia. She tries, once, when she and Lucy have gone out for a tramp in the countryside. Susan talks, haltingly, of the fact that she has lost her place, the way in which she has been exiled from her own country; she is no longer a queen. Seeing their home all ramshackle and falling to bits; Susan's heart has not recovered, quite, from that blow. When she tries to tell Lucy, though, her sister cannot quite sympathise, because she does not know. Lucy squeezes her hand and they walk in silence, and inside, Susan's heart begins to rage.

_Aslan, _she pleads, and never quite allows herself to ask-_why? _

*-*

When she hears that Lucy and Edmund have been to Narnia, Susan does her best to be happy for them. After all, who could begrudge...? But then she hears the words _Eustace _and _dragon _and _redemption, _and she has not been so angry in a long time. That she, the Queen of Narnia, had been passed over, for... for _him_! Eustace is petty and childish and obnoxious, and he will never, ever see the beauty in her country that she used to. A nagging, aching bitterness tightens around her heart, and she does not fight. Just this moment of self-pity; it will soon pass, and she will be comfortable again.

*-*

Standing away from the mirror, Susan is quite satisfied with herself. Her lips are red, her skin is pale, and her hair pools dark around her shoulders. It is a type of magic she learnt in America; perhaps, in another world, the air and the water were sufficient to make her unique. Here, she helps the process along a little, and she feels almost like a princess. It is better, she thinks, than nothing. For a fleeting instant, she sees the phantom of a tall, dark, gentle queen lurking in the room with her; the presence irritates her, and she shakes her head to clear she cannot be a queen here, she will still be unique, and men will still pay her court.

*-*

Lucy bursts into her sister's dorm, brandishing a letter and a smile. She announces, after a perfunctory glace around, that Eustace and a girl have been to Narnia. A nameless girl. This is the last straw, and Susan looks up.

"Narnia?" she asks lazily, feigning confusion, and from that moment, the pain and the jealousy and the bitterness begin to fade. Her horrified sister talks about Tumnus, and Caspian, and _Aslan, _and with each word, Susan feels herself slipping away into numb, beautiful ignorance.

After a few days, the confusion is no longer feigned; when she looks in the mirror, she sometimes feels a fleeting sense of loss, a sense that she is not really all she could be, but she dismisses it. This is now, and she will be better off if she stops chasing silly dreams.

*-*

Lucy's broken, beautiful body lies in front of her, and, before she can help herself, Susan presses a kiss to the frigid forehead. Inside, she feels colder than her sister is; she has never felt loss like this. With a short nod, she acknowledges to the authorities that these are the... the remains of her siblings and parents. Dizzily, she walks back to her house, and the rest of the day, she spends sitting in her bedroom, staring blankly at the door. A once-familiar rage begins to surge inside her, much louder and stronger than it has ever been.

_Aslan, _she shouts in her heart, and she doesn't care that she is being ridiculous. If there is anyone to blame, it is Aslan, and she doesn't care whether He was imaginary in the first place. _Aslan, _and now she is really shouting, for once not caring if anyone hears.

There is no-one left to hear.

She storms for a few minutes, sinking clumsily to her knees and sobbing and cursing Aslan with the foulest words she knows. Her face is covered in tears and make-up and fury, and it is only when she runs out of breath that the tirade stops, and Susan thinks.

Suddenly ashamed of herself, she tries to wipe her face on her blouse, smudging apologies and lipstick into the crisp white fabric. Desperate, lonely words like _sorry _and _forgive _and _please, _and, regardless of anything else, she knows that Narnia is real and that she has forsaken her country and the Highest of Kings. Burying her face in the ruined blouse, she whispers a plea, though she is not quite sure what she is asking for; the only thing she knows is that Him whom she is asking is more faithful than the sunrise.

With those quiet, scarcely coherent words, something remarkable occurs; her brothers and sister are still dead, and she is still more impossibly sad than she had ever been before, but there is a barely perceivable straightening of her back, and the sunlight floods the room. Susan is, once more, the Gentle Queen.

**Disclaimer: I love them a lot, and I would love to own them, but these characters aren't mine. They are CSL's and I would never want to steal from him because he was fab!**


End file.
